Holy Wars 2017 - Part 1 - Overview
Entry posted by Thomas Lyons
895 views
I’m finally back from Holy Wars 2017 and what an experience it was. My birthday was on the Friday leading into the event so I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate it than spending a couple days rolling dice on beautiful tables. I’ll be doing a series of blog posts over the next couple days regarding the event, the armies, and the tables/scenarios. In this first blog, I’ll cover my own force and briefly discuss the event.
When I decided to go to Holy Wars this year, I wanted to lean more into the hobby/narrative aspect (which is what the event is really about) and less into the competitive aspect. Vince and I took a hard-as-nails list to Holy Havok 2016 team event (where we tied for best overall) and I wanted to do something a bit different. So, for this event, I built my list out of models that were narratively compelling or aesthetically pleasing in my Horned Legion force rather than necessarily strictly competitive. For example, while I initially considered including a third set of 5 Blightkings in my force sideboard with my last 200 points, I decided to instead go with my converted Nurgle Warshrine. It is a fantastic aesthetic centerpiece to an otherwise heavy infantry force and it exudes the character of Ghur where the Blighted Legion is stationed in their keep of Mireguard.
Each player was told to bring 2500 points although each game was only 2000 points. This gave me quite a bit of flexibility in deployment to customize my army to what I was staring down. This ended up being a much greater boon than I had anticipated. So the list I ended up bringing was as follows…
- 140 Harbinger of Decay - Harbinger Gulgath the Pustulant
- 240 Be’lakor, Chaos Daemon Prince
- 160 Sayl the Faithless
- 120 Chaos Sorcerer Lord on Chaos Steed (Nurgle)
- 180 10 Warriors of Chaos (Nurgle) w/Full Command – Handweapon/Shield
- 360 10 Putrid Blightkings
- 180 30 Chaos Marauders (Nurgle) w/Full Command and Icon – Axe/Shield
- 300 30 Plaguebearers of Nurgle
- 300 Hellcannon
- 180 Plagueclaw
- 200 Chaos Warshrine (Nurgle)
- 120 10 Chaos Furies (Nurgle)
My standard deployment would be my four heroes (560 points), 10 Putrid Blightkings (360 points, either in two 5s or one 10), Hellcannon (300), Plagueclaw (180), and 20 Marauders (120), 10 Marauders (60), and 10 Plaguebearers (100) for battleline. This would leave 200 points for summoning either the remaining 20 Plaguebearers, Chaos Furies, or a mix of Plaguebearers and Chaos Furies. 
I ended up doing surprisingly well with this force in the matched play although my focus on the narrative/hobby aspect paid off as I was privileged to receive the event’s highest honors, the Hammer Hobbyist award, which is given to the player who embodies the hobby and everything the event is about (painting, narrative, etc.).
It was a fantastic experience overall, and in the immortal words of anonymous Yelp! reviewer #87: "Five Stars - would do agin". In future posts I’ll do some brief game summaries, provide shots of all the tables/scenarios, and the attending armies.
-
3
2 Comments
Recommended Comments